Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
Retired Victorian cricket stalwart Aaron Finch has hosed down Usman Khawaja’s contentious claim that his old state side was “genius” at ball tampering.
In his headline-grabbing autobiography, Khawaja said the Victorians were “probably the best” at ball tampering during his domestic career with NSW and Queensland.
The former Test opener batted on many “dead and flat” MCG pitches and argued reverse swing and a bit of spin were “the only way” to win there.
“The Victorians of that 2000s and 2010s era were genius at it,” Khawaja wrote on ball tampering at Sheffield Shield level.
“Throwing it into the wicket and doing other dark arts to rough it up and make the shiny side relatively shinier. It was all fair game.
“It was no surprise when, years later, Victoria’s bowling coach, Micky Lewis, was caught on cameras scraping the ball in the gutter when it got hit for a boundary.
“This kind of stuff was very normal.”
Finch, who featured in more than 50 Sheffield Shield matches for Victoria from 2010 to 2019, was yet to read the book excerpt, but rubbished its claims.
“I saw some of the comments about it … I don’t think that that’s accurate,” he told reporters.
However, Finch acknowledged Victoria had been “very good” at exploiting reverse swing when it was on offer.
“We had some great exponents of it through that 2000 (era), before my time through to I guess 2018, 2020,” he added.
Finch played his first of five Tests for Australia after the suspension of Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft over the 2018 sandpapergate incident at Newlands in Cape Town.
He partnered Khawaja at the top of the order on debut against Pakistan in the UAE, scoring 62 and 49 as Australia clung on for a draw.
The ex-Australian ODI and T20 captain said Khawaja’s recounting of events eight years on had picked at some scars for team members at the time.
But Finch backed Cricket Australia boss Todd Greenberg’s call not to reopen their formal investigation, suggesting too much time had passed to form an accurate picture based on player recollections.
“What happened in Cape Town was obviously unfortunate for Australian cricket,” Finch said.
“But it’s been a long time now and … by continually being brought back up, I don’t think that’s doing anybody who was involved any favours.
“It was obviously a really difficult time.”
Peter Handscomb, who was 12th man in Cape Town and seen speaking to Australian coach Darren Lehmann over a walkie-talkie after Bancroft was caught with the sandpaper, was evasive when asked about the incident on Wednesday night.
“I appreciate you have to ask these questions,” he said after scoring a century for Victoria against WA in the Sheffield Shield.
“I’ve had a nice day today and yeah that’s not something that I want to comment on right now.
“I’ll sort of just let the powers that be do their thing.”
